Page 103 of Her Wicker Guardian

Questions fly again, faster than before, and Aaron steps forward.

“That’s enough.”

Rachel touches my forearm in the same place she touched me last night, but this touch is different. I know that now.

I turn with her and walk toward the cottage while voices follow us. I do not answer them.

Inside, Rachel closes the door and locks it. One, two, three, four.

The curtains are still shut, the drones are still outside, and reporters are still talking about me. But something has changed. Rachel leans against the door and looks at me. “How are you?”

No one outside asked me that.

“Better.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

I glance down at the place on my arm where her hand rested as we walked away, then meet her gaze again.

“They heard me.”

Rachel’s expression softens. “Yes,” she says. “Some of them did.”

Chapter Eighteen

Rachel

By Saturday, three days after Locke spoke to the cameras outside my house, the national media has learned three things about Hollis Springs: the coffee shop on Main opens earlier than any reporter wants to be awake, the motel off Highway 37 fills up fast when satellite trucks arrive, and Deputy Aaron Pike can say “keep moving” with enough authority to make grown adults obey him.

The worst of the circus has eased since Wednesday. It hasn’t disappeared. Reporters remain in town and drones make occasional passes overhead, but at least the shoulder outside my house is empty again. I can open the curtains without finding a camera pointed directly at my breakfast, which now qualifies as progress.

Mara Keene has called twice. Both times, she asked whether Locke wanted to talk before she asked anything else. Both times he said no, and both times she accepted it without trying to persuade him. So far, she’s the only reporter Locke is willing to consider talking to again.

I haven’t been back to the Blue Plate since Monday. I called my manager after the reporters started multiplying and told him I needed a few days off, possibly longer. He was more understanding than I expected, probably because half the town had already seen my driveway on television by then. Unfortunately, understanding and paid leave are not the same thing.

I’ve started doing the arithmetic every time I open the refrigerator. Electricity. Groceries. Gas. All the ordinary expenses that have failed to stop just because my life went insane. At least Locke isn’t going to eat me out of house and home. So far, he’s cost me hot water for three showers, bottled water, and one packet of microwave popcorn. I’m still going to have to figure out how long I can afford not to work.

Locke has also acquired a phone. Blair had an assistant pick up the simplest smartphone she could find, and I spent yesterday showing Locke how to answer calls, use the camera, and recognize the handful of contact photos I saved for him. Reading still isn’t part of the equation, but that hasn’t slowed his interest. He’s already sent me nineteen photographs of the wicker bear from angles no normal person would consider necessary.

Shannon texted this morning to say she and Tom were coming to visit and bringing their two kids with them. When they arrive around lunch with Evan and Maddie, Locke is sitting on the screened porch with the phone in one hand, studying his latest bear picture. He looks up when the familiar truck turns onto the gravel.

“Tom.”

Four doors close out front. A moment later Shannon comes around the cottage carrying two grocery bags, with Tom behind her holding a cardboard box. Evan follows with another bag, and Maddie is already trying not to stare at Locke.

“I brought food,” Shannon says, pointing at me. “Nobody is allowed to tell me you already have food.”

“We already have food.”

“What did I just say not to do?”

Tom lifts the box. “I warned her.”

“And yet you’re still married,” I say.

“Barely.”